LJJ 138^ 



ADDRESS OF 

WILLIAM C. BROWN 

President 
New York Central Lines 

At Founder's Day Exercises of the 

CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

Ithaca, N. Y., January ii, igio 



Mr. President^ Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I esteem it an exceedingly great privilege, as \vell as 
a distinguished honor, to participate in these exercises 
in honor of the founder of this great institution of learn- 
ing. 

The name and fame of Ezra Cornell appeal to me 
with peculiar significance, because he was one of the 
creators of, and was long identified with, the great busi- 
ness of telegraphy ; and his name was a very familiar 
one to me in the early seventies, when I was a young 
telegrapher. 

It is usual upon occasions of this character which 
mark the milestones in the life of an institution, a com- 
munity or an individual, to deal largely in things of 
the past, to indulge in remarks of retrospective charac- 
ter ; but I am going to ask you to consider for a few 
moments a subject which I regard as of paramount pres- 
ent interest, and which is destined to increase in import- 
ance with startling rapidity. 

Almost unconsciously the present generation and the 
one that preceded it have witnessed and are now wit- 
nessing the culmination and end of one of the greatest 



epochs of all history; the tremendous, far-reaching sig- 
nificance of which, when viewed in large perspective, is 
but faintly comprehended even by the most profound, 
clear-visioned students of political economy. 

Two thousand years before the birth of Christ, in 
the early dawn of civilization, history tells of a tribe 
■of yellow men who left the Valley of the Tigris or the 
Euphrates, and emigrated to the East. I think this is 
the only recorded case of emigration in that direction, 
and historians tells us that in all probability this tribe 
of yellow men located on the western shore of the Pacific 
Ocean and was the nucleus of the present great Chinese 
nation, with its four hundred million souls. 

A thousand years later Grecian adventurers crossed 
the Aegean Sea and established the first colonies upon 
its western shores. This was the beginning of that great 
westward drift of population that has never ceased ; 
-and through all the centuries the ever-receding west, 
absorbing and assimilating the millions of the overflow 
■of older civilizations, has continually called for more. 

For more than three hundred years the nations of the 
Old World have found on this new continent an indis- 
pensable safety valve. Our broad, unoccupied prairies 
"have furnished to the discontented, the dispossessed and 
unfortunate of every nation an opportunity to begin life 
anew under conditions happier than could be found in 
any other land. 

When Cornell was founded in 1865, almost the entire 
trans-Mississippi empire was a wilderness. 

That year marked the close of the Civil War, and 
the States of Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska could have 
furnished a quarter section of fertile gove^^nment land 
to every veteran mustered out of the military service of 

2 
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the nation. Great states and territories, with their \yeahh 
of forest and prairies, lay waiting to be peopled. 

To-day, the last county of the last state and territory 
where cultivation is possible has been settled. That great 
wave of population beginning with the Grecian colonies, 
which crossed the Aegean and the Adriatic seas a thou- 
sand vears before the birth of Christ, has broken on the 
eastern shore of the Pacific. 

The tribe of yellow men that journeyed east, multi- 
plied by millions, occupies the western shore of that 
mightv ocean — the great westward moving procession of 
the centuries has encircled the globe. Soon a great 
human undertow must set back toward the east, and the 
westward tide which cannot be materially checked must 
settle in turbulent eddies about our great centers of popu- 
lation. 

In a letter written by Lord Macauley to Mr. H. S. 
Randall, a citizen of this country, under date of May 23, 
1857, he said. 

"As long as you have a boundless extent of fer- 
tile, unoccupied land, your laboring population will 
be far more at ease than the laboring population of 
the Old World. But the time will come when New 
England will be as thickly peopled as Old England. 
You will have your Manchesters. and your Birming- 
hams, and in these INIanchesters and Birminghams 
hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be 
sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will 
be fairly brought to the test." 
Two important features of this remarkable prophesy 
of a half century ago have been fulfilled. The boundless 
extent of fertile, unoccupied land is gone. We have our 
Manchesters and our Birmingfhams bv the score, and 



in times of great depression such as will certainly come, 
our unemployed will be numbered not by the hundreds of 
thousands but by the million. 

Is it not time to "take thought of the morrow," and 
to make such preparation as may be possible against the 
day of stress and test predicted by Macauley? 

In this direction I desire to briefly suggest two plans 
having a common purpose, and perhaps equal in impor- 
tance. 

First : The broadening of our methods of education 
in all our schools and colleges. I would give no less 
attention to graduating lawyers and physicians, but 
would give a great deal more to turning out of our public 
schools young men with a good, common-school educa- 
tion plus a year's practical training at some useful trade. 

I would have a first-class manual training school at- 
tached to every high school and to every college and 
university, where young men could be turned out good, 
practical journeymen blacksmiths, boilermakers, car- 
penters, cabinet workers, plumbers, or skilled workmen 
at some other useful trade. I would increase the capacity 
of these schools to accommodate every child in the com- 
munity, and then I would make attendance compulsory. 

I have discussed this question with officials of public 
school boards and with the presidents of some of our 
colleges and, in a majority of cases, have been met with 
the suggestion that a course of this kind would be likely 
to antagonize organized labor. I am glad to-day that 
the doubt as to the attitude of organized labor upon this 
important subject has been definitely set at rest. Recently 
at the annual convention of the American Federation of 
Labor, a special committee on industrial education ap- 
pointed one year ago to make a study of this subject. 



submitted its report, from which the following is an 
extract : 

"Organized labor favors that plan of industrial 
training which will give our boys and girls such 
training as will help them to advance after they are 
in industry. We believe that as much attention 
should be given to the proper education of those 
who work at our industry as is now given to those 
who prepare to enter professional and managerial 
careers." 
The report was submitted by a committee of which 
John jMitchell was chairman, and like the man, it is pro- 
gressive, hopeful and helpful. 

If we could adopt Germany's system of technical 
training, her research and thoroughness, and combine 
them with our inventions, the combination would domi- 
nate the world. Without these fundamental qualities, it 
is only a question of time when this country must sur- 
render its place as a leader among the great manufactur- 
ing nations of the world. 

A German commission which recently visited this 
country recognized the fact that great as the United 
States is, we will not continue to be a dangerous com- 
petitor of Germany in our manufacturing industries 
after we have a little further depleted our abundant 
supply of raw material. 

This confident belief is based upon the notorious lack 
of technical education in this country as compared with 
that of Germany, where almost every workman is a 
master of his trade. 

The report of the commission asserts that : 

"American colleges turn out a host of profes- 
sional men, but few skilled artisans and craftsmen. 



The meagerness of technical education, the trivial 
contingent of chemists, dyers, weavers and elec- 
tricians seems a shortsighted policy for a country 
of 80,000,000 people." 

Successful demur to this indictment is impossible. It 
is a true bill. 

I would make our agricultural colleges and the agri- 
cultural departments of all colleges in fact what they are 
in name b}^ limiting admission to young men who want 
to study and school themselves in scientific agriculture 
for the purpose of becoming first-class farmers, thor- 
oughly equipped for and vitally interested in that most 
honorable profession 

I would postpone the day of test foreshadowed by 
Lord Macauley by a system of thorough education in 
agricultural methods that would result in doubling our 
rural population, and more than doubling the product 
of the nation's farms. 

The United States as a whole has as fertile soil and 
as favorable climate as any country in the world. Given 
the same intelligent methods of seed selection, fertiliza- 
tion and cultivation, our lands will produce as large crops 
as those of any other nation. A simple comparison of 
the average annual yield per acre of the principal cereals 
in this country with those of the older nations is the 
severest possible criticism of our methods, or our want 
of method. During the last ten years our farms have 
produced an average annual yield of wheat of less than 
14 bushels per acre. England produces., more than 32, 
Germany about 28, the Netherlands more than 34, and 
France approximately 20. 

Of oats, the United States produces an average annual 
yield of 23.7 bushels per acre, England 42, Germany 46, 
and the Netherlands 53 bushels. 

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Potatoes, like wheat, corn and bread, are a food staple 
of the poor man. Our average yield is 85 bushels per 
acre, while Germany, Belgium and Great Britain pro- 
duce 250 bushels. 

Germany, with an arable area no greater than some 
of our larger states, produces approximately two billion 
bushels of potatoes annually, while the aggregate crop 
of the United States averages barely two hundred and 
seventy-five million bushels per annum ; and in the year 
ended June 30, 1909, we imported 8,400,000 bushels. 

For half a century we have very justly regarded our 
country as the granary of the world, and our annual ex- 
ports of food stufifs have formed a basis for a large bal- 
ance of trade in our favor. Our exports of this character 
show a steady and alarmingly rapid decline. In the past, 
increase in population, increase in consumption, has been 
met by multiplied acres. This is no longer possible, or 
at least only to a very limited and constantly diminish- 
ing extent. Increased consumption in the future must 
be provided for, not by an increase in acres but by an 
increase in the yield per acre. 

Each year immigration and natural increase add ap- 
proximately two million hungry mouths to be fed, and it 
calls for an increase of approximately 75,000,000 bushels 
of food producing cereal per annum to supply this de- 
mand. 

In 1898 the total acreage of corn, wheat, oats, barley 
and rye in the United States was a little less than one 
hundred and fifty-two million acres, the yield 22.5 bushels 
per acre, the aggregate product three billion, four hun- 
dred and twelve million bushels, of which there was ex- 
ported almost five hundred and ninety-nine million 
bushels. 



In 1908 the acreage had increased to more than one 
hundred and ninety million acres ; the yield was 22.8 
bushels per acre; the aggregate yield four billion, three 
hundred and thirty-nine million bushels ; but our exports 
had fallen to one hundred and sixty-five million bushels,, 
a decrease of 72 per cent. 

This tremendous falling off in exports of grain and 
its products suggests the possibility that the grain may 
have been fed to stock and exported in the shape of beef 
and pork, but the falling off in the exports of these com- 
modities for the period named is fully as startling as in 
grain. 

I have noted with regret expressions of satisfaction 
and self-congratulation upon the part of the press .over 
the fact that the aggregate value of farm products has 
increased from four billion, four hundred and seventeen 
million dollars in 1898 to eight billion, seven hundred and 
sixty million dollars in 1909, unmindful of the disturbing 
fact that this increase in value is the result almost entirely 
of increased acreage and a startling increase in price per 
bushel, and not the result of an increased yield per acre. 

This failure to increase the production of the nation's 
farms by increasing the number of bushels per acre is 
steadily and rapidly increasing the cost of living; and 
manufacturers, merchants and employers of labor of 
every class are scanning the future with anxious eyes, 
for the end does not seem to be in sight. 

The only possible solution, the only possible salva- 
tion for the country, is an immediate and most thorough 
awakening of our people to an appreciation of the over- 
shadowing importance of this condition, followed by a 
systematic, persevering campaign of education. The 
Hon. A. S. Draper, State Commissioner of Education, in 



an address on "Agriculture and Its Educational Needs," 
summed the whole matter up tersely and comprehensively 
in the following conclusion : 

"We should enter upon a great system of agri- 
cultural extension. The schools, from highest to 
lowest, should act in accord, not only in training 
students and in scientific research, but in carrying 
knowledge to the very doors of the farmers. Evan- 
gelistic work in agriculture should go everywhere. 
Seed specials should be run over the railroads. The 
blood of the best farm animals should be distributed 
throughout the state. Object lessons of special in- 
terest to both men and women should be carried in 
all directions. The applications should be especially 
adapted to every section, and the fullest attention 
should be given to the less favored rather than to the 
more favored counties of the state." 
New York State should be a leader in this work, first 
because no state in the Union needs it so badly; second, 
because the Empire State should be a leader in this great 
work as she is in almost every other great national move- 
ment. 

Ninety years ago the richness and fertility of the soil 
of New York State and the production of her farms was 
the wonder and admiration of European travelers. In 
i860 this state was among the first of the great agri- 
cultural states of the Union. To-day the State of Maine, 
lying farther to the north, with its rocks and its forests, 
raises more per acre of all the cereals than we do, and 
her potato crop averages 225 bushels, as against 82 
bushels per acre in New York. 

I have read with great interest the reports of your 
president and the heads of the various departments for 



the years 1908-09, and note that an appropriation of ap- 
proximately one million dollars for needed additional 
buildings and equipment, and an increase in the annual 
appropriation for maintenance of $50,000 per annum is 
to be asked at the hands of the State Legislature. 

The fact that the statement is made that unless en- 
largements and improvements are provided for, "the 
number of students that can be admitted to this College 
of Agriculture must be immediately limited," suggests 
the possibility of a doubt about this appropriation being 
made. 

This doubt is emphasized by the earnest appeal with 
which Director Bailey closes the report of his depart- 
ment. It is worthy of reproduction, and I want it given 
the widest possible publicity. It is as follow-s : 

'T wish to repeat, what I have so many times ex- 
pressed, that we are beginning a college of agricul- 
ture, not completing one. Few persons even yet 
realize what aids an institution of this kind will con- 
tribute to the welfare of the future. I am in posi- 
tion to appreciate this, for the most urgent requests- 
are constantly coming to my desk from all depart- 
ments in the college for the means to do useful 
work. These are all unselfish. They are not re- 
quests to empower an officer to build up his depart- 
ment, but to enable him to do work for his fellows 
all over the state. I am powerless to provide the 
means, and I see the opportunities pass and the men 
grow old and the work of the people remaining not 
done. I should have liked the opportunity to have 
gone directly to the people with a plan complete 
enough to have appealed to their imagination." 
] Can it be possible that the Legislature of this state 

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will hesitate for one moment about an appropriation of 
a million dollars for this important object? I will guar- 
antee a return of one hundred times this amount each 
year upon the investment. 

If, through the improved methods worked out and 
introduced by this college, the production of potatoes 
alone per acre of the State could have been brought up 
to that of the State of Maine, it would have added fifty- 
two millions to the bank account of the farmers of New 
York State on the crop of 1908. 

In the year 1908 a friend of mine who some years 
ago bought five thousand acres of land in New York 
State raised 200 acres of corn, which yielded 50 bushels 
of shelled corn per acre ; his potatoes averaged 350 bush- 
els to the acre ; hay four tons, and beets 35 tons per acre. 
This was the result not of intensive farming, but of sim- 
ply intelligent farming, and these crops were raised in 
the extreme northern part of the state — twelve miles 
from the Canadian line, at the northern end of Lake 
Champlain. 

The same intelligent cultivation will produce like re- 
sults in every county in the state. 

The Department of Agriculture of the State of New 
York publishes a bulletin containing a list of farms for 
sale, and the man who can read it and appreciate the full 
significance of this list without a feeling of humiliation 
is lacking in that state pride and loyalty which every 
citizen should possess. 

Sixty-three thousand, four hundred and thirty-two 
acres of improved farms, with fences, houses, barns, etc., 
at an average price of $17.78 per acre. Nearly 100,000 
acres at an average price of $25 per acre. 

In the light of present conditions the agricultural situ- 

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ation in this state seems utterly incomprehensible and 
inexcusable ; but to those familiar with the history of ag- 
ricultural development and evolution during the past 
twenty-five years it is not so strange. 

From the earliest settlements on the Atlantic Coast 
until the last few years there have been great areas of 
fertile lands open for pre-emption by the homesteader 
or for sale very cheap and on long time by the western 
railroads. As railroads were extended into the wilder- 
ness settlers were located by the thousand, and each new 
development was followed by an over-production of farm 
products of every kind, which brought the price of these 
products below the cost of production. Corn sold in 
Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas for lo to 12 cents per 
bushel, and I have seen it burned for fuel because it was 
cheaper than wood or coal. These conditions produced a 
ruinous collapse of values of farming land in New York, 
Pennsylvania and New England. 

Not alone in our country were these conditions mak- 
ing themselves felt. Railroads were being built in India, 
Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Argentina, and 
cheap land and its products competed in every market 
on the globe. The conditions then were the exact reverse 
of the present. Then production was rapidly overtaking 
consumption, with a steady fall in values. Now con- 
sumption is overtaking production with alarming rapidity 
and values are rising by leaps and bounds. Then in- 
creased consumption could be provided for by increased 
acreage ; now this is impossible. Increased consumption 
can only be met by increased production on substantially 
our present acreage. Then the outlook for agriculture 
in the eastern states was dark and almost hopeless ; the 
market was limited, prices low, and the tendency was 

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always down. Now the market is unlimited at liberal 
and steadily advancing prices. Then there was a reason 
for cheap land in this and other eastern states ; now every 
acre of agricultural land, worn out and impoverished as 
much of it is, is worth $ioo per acre to build up and re- 
plenish. Then there was little incentive to fertilize and 
maintain the soil by the use of commercial fertilizers ; 
now these expenditures w'ill pay an hundred fold. 

Then the choice between the expense and work of 
maintaining the fertility of the soil in the older states, or 
opening up and cultivating the rich virgin soil in the 
west was a legitimate one. 

Now no such choice is possible. There is no alter- 
native ; we must increase production by more intelligent 
methods, or we must face the relentless certain coming 
of the day when we shall not produce food enough to 
supply our own necessities. 

For the year just closed the product of the nation's 
farms approximated nine billion dollars in value. No 
man who has made this subject a study doubts that this 
could be doubled without increase of acreage. 

Mr. J. J. Hill, in a recent article published in The 
World's Work, in speaking of the importance of this 
campaign of better agricultural methods, said : 

"The man who assumes to be th« farmer's friend 
or hold his interests dear will constitute himself a 
missionary of the new dispensation. It is an act of 
patriotic service to the country. It is a contribu- 
tion to the welfare of all humanity. It will strength- 
en the pillars of a government that must otherwise 
be endangered by some popular upheaval when the 
land can no longer sustain the population that its 
bosom bears. Here lies the true secret of our 

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anxious interest in agricultural methods ; because, in 
the long run, they mean life or death to future mill- 
ions who are no strangers or invaders, but our own 
children's children, and who will pass judgment 
upon us according to what we have made of the 
Avorld in which their lot is to be cast." 
Is it possible to exaggerate or magnify the impor- 
tance of this subject? Can the imagination conceive of a 
duty of higher, broader patriotism or one that involves 
more far-reaching, comprehensive philanthropy? 

Ezra Cornell was himself a practical farmer. He had 
been president of the State Agricultural Society. He 
was in sympathy with all forms of industry and desired 
to see it recognized in our educational institutions of high 
grade. In speaking of Cornell University in simple, but 
prophetic phrase, he said : 

"I would found an institution where any person 
can find instruction in any study." 
It is no disparagement of other institutions or instru- 
mentalities to say that this great institution that has 
made the name of Cornell imperishable, has done more 
and is doing more, for agriculture in this state than all 
others combined ; but I believe in this direction it has not 
passed the threshold of its usefulness. 

I believe that from the halls of this university have 
been graduated, and will be graduated, the men who are 
destined to lead in a great renaissance of agricultural 
possibilities, giving to this state a new birth of marvelous 
opportunity, of wonderful achievement, and that in lead- 
ing this great work in this grand old Empire State you 
will find yourselves leaders in a movement that will 
be epochal in significance, and continent wide in scope. 



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The James Kempstei- Print 



